The tents are up. The generators are purring. The clothes have dried from the adventure of a gear rescue during a quick but powerful South African thunderstorm. We’re sitting quietly at last, in collapsible chairs, and suddenly Elen Feuerriegel’s Australian accent excitedly breaks the silence.

“Under the ground here somewhere… there are hominid fossils waiting to be discovered!”

Tired from a day of camp building, evolutionary biomechanics expert Elen Feuerriegel still beams with excitement for the excavation ahead. (Photo by Andrew Howley)

The first day on site for the Rising Star Expedition has been, like the first day of almost anything, filled mostly with grunt work. This field is generally occupied only by the neighbor’s horses, which continue to nibble and gallop just beyond the edge of our collection of tents. For the next few weeks, it will be home to between 30 and 60 scientists and cavers, and there’s a lot to get ready to make that work.

The tents are set. The fossils await. (Photo by Andrew Howley)

There are 15 two-person tents, a medical/internet tent, a mess hall, generator, and an equipment storage tent. Up the hill past the farmhouse and the little girls jumping rope with one end tied to the wire fence, is another gear tent, two more generators, and what will soon be the science tent. Eventually it will hold high-tech equipment which will get a blog post of its own, but right now it looks more like an archaeological site, with a foundation of stones gathered from the area (watch out for scorpions) and a grid of two-by-fours being covered with huge rectangles of particleboard, screwed-in by an esteemed paleoanthropologist and a young paleo-botanist on a break from building her own house back in the U.S.

That’s the stuff that needs to happen before the scientists even begin the inspiring work that brought them here.

Peter Schmid of the Anthropological Institute, University of Zurich puts his whole body into the dying power drill before swapping in a new battery. (Photo by Andrew Howley)

That work is the excavation of newly discovered early human ancestor fossils from deep within a cave in South Africa. So deep that the head of the project, National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Lee Berger, sent out a call via his Facebook page for the specific type of researcher he needed:

“Individuals with excellent archaeological/paleontological and excavation skills … The catch is this – the person must be skinny and preferably small. They must not be claustrophobic, they must be fit, they should have some caving experience. Climbing experience would be a bonus.”

Through the wonders of the Internet he ended up with 57 applicants, which he whittled down to six women who are on-site now outside of Johannesburg. With expertise in biomechanics, ancient plants, and even historical archaeology, these scientists are about to become, as Lee Berger puts it, “underground astronauts.” Follow this blog and you’ll meet them all in the coming weeks.

The cave passages are tiny. The quarters will be cramped. The risk of injury, decreasing air quality, and mental strain are very real. As Marina Elliott put it, “I just don’t want to end up thinking about ‘Gravity’.”

The grunt work may be mostly done, but the intense challenges are very much still ahead.

Driving all these women, and everyone supporting them, is the prospect of uncovering a true scientific treasure, and the sense of duty to their subject.

There are hominid fossils waiting to be discovered.

A thin white line leads the way (and the electricity) into one of the entrances to the cave. (Photo by Andrew Howley)

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About This Blog

The Rising Star Expedition was rapidly assembled during October 2013 to recover ancient hominid fossils discovered deep in a South African cave.

With more than 1200 identified and cataloged hominid fossil elements already collected, the find could add significantly to our understanding of human evolution.

With the bones hidden 30 meters underground beyond obstacles including a dangerous squeeze only 18 cm wide, it was necessary to assemble a select team of capable researchers with excavation experience and the specialized caving skills and particular size required to reach the inner chamber. The few who met all these requirements happened to all be women.

Directed by National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Lee Berger of the University of the Witwatersrand, and supported by cavers from the Speleological Exploration Club of South Africa, these researchers spent three weeks bringing up hominid fossils that are now being analyzed by a wider team of experts on the surface.

For an unprecedented view into this rare discovery and the work of processing it all, follow along with updates here and on Twitter:@LeeRBerger@JohnHawks

New to the Story?

Read All Posts in Order: Get brought up to speed by starting from the top, and watch the discovery unfold as it happened in the field.

This expedition is supported in part by the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, where Lee Berger is Research Professor in Human Evolution and the Public Understanding of Science.

Lee Berger on Twitter

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